Teaching ideas

A-level English Language and Literature 7707

Dramatic Encounters: Speech acts

Introduction
These teaching ideas can be used with students when exploring the types of speech acts given to
character and the effects of these. They offer students the opportunity to explore the nature of
different speech acts and their significance in relation to the overall focus of ‘conflict’, and how
understanding these is important to interpreting key aspects of dramatic discourse, the themes,
characterisation and the links with contextual factors. They also encourage students to think about
how the playwright represents natural speech features, show characters’ asserting power through
the writer’s choice of speech acts.

The suggested activities are intended to span two lessons lasting one hour each.

Learning objectives
Students will:

• define speech acts and recognise the different types of speech acts
• explore how playwrights use speech acts to craft characteristics of conflict, for characterisation
and to link to the key themes of the play
• evaluate the significance of different speech acts in their use within the play and their likely
interpretative effects, as well as the influence of contextual factors.

Prior knowledge needed

Students should have some knowledge of the following:

• language levels
• how playwrights represent natural speech features
• power – how it is presented, negotiated and shifts
• aspects of stagecraft and dramatic conventions.

Lesson preparation
Teachers will need the following resources:

• lesson 1: mini-whiteboards, definitions of speech acts and examples (PowerPoint, IWB or

written on board), role play scenarios for each pair of student
• lesson 2: A3/poster paper to note down group feedback, ‘force’ table presented via
PowerPoint, IWB or written on board
• arrangement of tables suitable for collaborative pair work.

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Activities
Lesson 1

• Starter: give students the following sentence, ‘it’s warm in here’ in the context of a student
coming into the classroom for a lesson. Ask them to write down what functions this might have,
or its different possible interpretations. For example, as an indirect request (to open the
window), an indirect refusal (to not open the window because of the cold outside) or as a
complaint (that someone should already have opened the window).

Discuss in terms of establishing the three elements of a speech act:

o propositional meaning (its literal meaning)

o illocutionary meaning (its social function eg a request, a refusal, a complaint)
o perlucutionary meaning (the effect of what is said) – someone opens the window.

• Activity 1: Based on Austin’s (1962) and Searle’s (1969) theory, Cohen (1996) suggests five
categories of speech acts.

• Give students this table which includes a definition and a description of the speech acts and
the typical verbs used to perform them.

Representatives Directives Expressives Comissives Declaratives

the speaker is the speaker the speaker the speaker is the speaker
committed to the attempts to get expresses an committed to a alters the
truth of the the hearer to do attitude about a (future) course outward status
proposition something state of affairs of action or condition of
an object or
situation, solely
by making the
utterance
assertions suggestions apologies promises decrees
claims requests complaint threats declarations
reports commands thanks offers

examples of examples of examples of examples of examples of

verbs: verbs: verbs: verbs: verbs:
affirm, deny, command, dare, apologize, swear, vow, baptize,
believe, challenge, ask, , deplore, thank, guarantee, sentence, resign
conclude, report insist, request, congratulate, pledge, promise
regret, welcome

• Ask the students, in pairs, to discuss situations where they would use the different types of
speech acts, or actual ones they can remember. They should write down examples and share
with the whole group. (Alternatively the could experiment with different contexts/situations for
one speech act eg promises in marriage service, to teachers about homework or parents about
tidiness, politicians and elections promises etc.)

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• Activity 2: Give students the ‘scenario’ cards. Give one situation (there are two for each
speech act) to each pair. (These can be doubled up depending on the group size or further
situations could be added.) In pairs, the students role play one of the scenarios and record the
conversations they have in response to these. These should be no longer than a minute. They
then transcribe these and then identify the speech features they have used and explore the
strategies they have used for complaints, requests or refusals. (They could use the
transcription conventions used in the AQA Anthology: Paris for familiarity.)

o Complaints

You visit a shop where you bought a T-shirt You have ordered a meal. It has arrived after
recently. It has got holes in it. a long wait but it is cold.

o Requests

You have got a test back from your teacher. You want to rearrange a hair appointment as
You think that they have missed giving you you have been given the opportunity to go to a
marks that would result in you getting a higher theme park for the day instead.
grade.

o Refusals

Your grandmother has tickets for a concert Your friend has a spare ticket to a gig. It will
and wants to you to go with her. It’s going to cost you £50 and you think it’s too expensive.
be attended by all her friends and you don’t It’s your friend’s 18th birthday on the same day
like the music. as the gig.

• Get each pair of students to join up with the pair(s) who have the same speech act as them,
but a different situation. Ask them to identify and list the similarities and differences in the
speech features and strategies used.

Plenary and preparation for next lesson

• Plenary placemat – students write down an example of a speech act and identify what type of
act it is (eg a comissive, expressive etc.)
• For the next lesson, students will look over the feedback from Activity 2 and consider the
impact of contextual factors (age, relationship etc) on the ways that speakers behaved in the
role plays.

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Lesson 2

• Starter: using their preparation for the lesson and the transcripts and lists of
similarities/differences, students explore the impact of the following contextual factors on the
realisation of speech acts:

o social status
o gender
o age
o social distance
o culture
o personality
o (time period – they could reflect on how the language choices might have been different in
the past and associated social/historical factors).

• Activity 1: introduce students to the notion of felicity conditions (the set of contextual
conditions which are needed if a speech act is going to work). In the first lesson, they explored
the elements of a speech act, but they could now be introduced to ideas about force.

Act performed by speaking Speech act/ illocutionary force Your room is a disgrace. Tidy
your room now.
Intended effect as a Intended perlucutionary force/ The room is tidied.
consequence of performing a effect
speech act
Actual effect caused by the Actual perlucutionary force/ A refusal or laughter.
act effect

• You could also link speech acts to grammatical structures eg questions (interrogatives),
command (imperatives) and statements (declaratives). It is worth also exploring some of the
complexities eg ‘you can shut the door’ which can be seen as a statement until the context is
given, for example a teacher speaking to late student where the illocutionary force is more that
of a command or in another context where it may be a question. Give the students extracts
from the play they are studying. (If there are film / TV versions of the play, these selected
extracts or scenes could be shown.) Ask them to explore:

o the context of the extract such as where it occurs in the play, the relationship between the
characters, information given in stage directions etc)
o the speech acts being presented
o what this says about the characters, their relationships, power and conflict, and the events
of the play
o any mismatch between the intended effects and actual effects and interpretations of these.

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Further work
• A-level students could begin to think about possible areas of exploration for their NEA (it would
be possible to explore in detail the fictional representations of speech acts in other plays and
then do some comparative work with non-literary material such as transcripts, TV programmes
or how speech acts are represented in political speeches or in election manifestos).

Version 0.1
First published (01/05/2015)
Last updated (01/05/2015)

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